Reader Request: What to wear for Thanksgiving

I love holiday movies like Love Actually, The Holiday, The Family Stone, and even Four Christmases (not my favorite, but I love Reese).  However, one thing that always makes me smile is seeing an entire family get all dressed up to eat.  Perhaps my family is just more casual than most, but for us, Turkey Day is about a big meal and football and is a decidedly casual affair.

One reader is about to spend her first Thanksgiving with her boyfriend's family and asked for some outfit suggestions, but nothing so fancy that she'll look out of place.  I love online shopping with a purpose, so here a couple of casual, but chic options that I think would be great for hanging out with family and eating a ton of food.


"Hi, I'm casual but dressed up enough to show that I care"
I love how sweater dresses look cute, but are as comfortable as pajamas. Pairing with boots keeps things casual but you still look like you made an effort.

Sweater: Gap, Dress: Forever 21, Boots: Corso Como, Purse: Fossil, Jewelry: Don't remember

 
"I'm here to eat and watch sports"
I think jeggings look fine as long as they are not worn like actual jeans with short tops.  Seriously.  They were made for lounging around and look cute long sweaters and chic ballet flats but start to look tacky when paired with crotch baring tops.

Cardigan coat and purse: Lands End Canvas, Sweater: J.Crew, Jeggings: Forever 21, Flats: Old Navy

Don't forget that I'm always accepting reader requests for outfits or home items, just let me know what you're looking to find and I'll try my best to help out.  I actually enjoy it!

I think I'll keep my day job... DIY chair recovering

Most of my friends know that I love me some Craigslist.  I search the same terms every day and sometimes I find awesome things priced much less than they're worth.  When N and I bought a new dining room table, I looked at lots of beautiful chairs and the ones I want are far beyond my reach right now...

Crate and Barrel, Sasha, $399 each

Rather than spend a lot of money on some chairs I kinda like, I decided to look for a cheap solution on Craigslist that will serve our needs until I can get what I want (one day).  Enter four antique chairs from England priced at $25 each.  The lines are really classic, but not overly fussy, and they look pretty cool next to our espresso colored table.  However, the seats were a wreck.  The old leather was cracked and ripped and I began searching for the right fabric to recover them (and wrote this post about it). After spending entirely too much time looking at swatches and trying to balance the fabric with the rug and potential wallpaper, I decided that simple is better. 

I found some robin's egg blue outdoor fabric for $6.99 per yard online and set about recovering the seats with some help from N on Saturday morning.  It was not easy stripping 70+ year old leather off of the seats and pulling out at least 100 tiny little nails, but my husband is pretty handy and finished three seats in the time it took me to pull the nails out of one.  I found 4 pre-cut chair cushions made of 1 in high density foam at JoAnn's Fabric and used an exacto knife to cut them to fit.  Then, I just used N's staple gun and attached the fabric to the frame of the seats.  I pulled it too tight on the first one, and the second was a little bumpy on the edges, but I got the hang of it and now I'm proud of my handy work

Nobody is going to mistake this for a professional job, but none of my friends get on their knees to inspect chair cushions and for a total cost of $135, I am pretty happy with the end result. 

I've finally decided...

I doubt many people have ever thought about a wallpaper pattern more than I have.  I was really close to scrapping the whole idea and just painting my dining area wall so I wouldn't have to decide at all.

Then, I saw this photo on Design Sponge and got really excited:

The wallpaper is called Flower Blossom by Orla Kiely and it's still available online.  The hitch in my plan is that it's $95 per roll and I'll probably need two of them. And I have to convince N that it's not weird.  Here goes nothing!

It's cardigan season!

This blog is called Cardigan Junkie for a reason... I wear them all the time and at last count, own 15.  This is my favorite time of year because I can wear them all the time and there are so many cute options on store.  Here's a few that I'll be watching and waiting for the prices to drop!

Gap Double Knit Alpaca Cardigan

Gap Shawl Cardigan
Ok, so I bought this in black to wear on my honeymoon but I want the other colors too.  It's so soft and cozy!

 LOFT Raindrop Print Cardigan

Fossil Lauren Sweater (LOVE!!)

J.Crew Tie Front Cardigan

INC Leopard Print Elbow Sleeve Cardigan

Wedding Recap: The Party

Yesterday I told you all about the clothes, and today I'll quickly recap my wedding reception and how I made it all fairly affordable but still very 'me'.

The Food
For food, I faced the challenge of serving lunch for 150 for very little money.  I priced lots of caterers but quickly found that the cheapest route (with the level of service I needed) would be to go through a restaurant instead.  Compared to $13 per person, I paid $8 for a choice of meat, 2 sides, salad, rolls and iced tea.  We still managed to have an open bar, but served wine and beer since it was a daytime event.  We were able to purchase our own drinks and bring them to the venue, and got some good deals by simply making friends with the owners of our local wine/beer store.  We let them know how much we planned to buy and then got really some good prices on cases of wine and beer - they even special ordered our choice of Shiner Bock and threw in all the ice we needed.  Had we not asked for a deal, we would have paid a lot more.  (I also learned to have a little more red wine on hand than white and never assume anyone is going ask for a Miller Light when there's Shiner to be had)

The Cake
I loved our cake and how it actually looked edible.  I'm not a big fan of fondant, which is a good thing when you're on a budget because bakeries charge a premium for it.  We went with a buttercream frosting and ordered a 12" two-layer cake for display and cutting and then supplemented it with three flavors of sheet cake (we got three half sheets) for our guests to pick from.  We decided against having a grooms cake because they tend to cost almost as much as the bride's cake and lead to lots of leftovers.  I got our cake topper from the Mudcards shop on Etsy and it now lives on our bookshelf.  The flowers were from Hobby Lobby.

The Favors
As I mentioned last month, I made my own candy buffet to serve as wedding favors.  It was a big hit and I wouldn't do anything differently except buy more Reese's Pieces and Gummy worms and fewer Hershey Kisses.  It was true that the guests tended to fill the bags provided, so if you build your own buffet for a party, make sure you have enough candy for everyone to fill whatever container you provide. (Those little Chinese takeout boxes hold a lot of candy... beware)

The Flowers
I'm incredibly lucky to have a sister in law who can arrange flowers.  However, if you're not blessed with a family florist, you can still skip the professionals if you're willing to have simple arrangements and buy flowers from a wholesaler.  I opted to primarily use white hydrangeas, which are in season and take up a lot of space (so you need fewer of them!).  Combined with my Dollar Tree glass vases and ribbon, My centerpiece arrangements rang in at about $5 each.  The bridesmaids carried a similar bouquet (1-2 more stems) and mine was a mix of white and green flowers and berries.

The Music
Unfortunately, my budget didn't allow for a band or deejay.  Thank goodness for iTunes.  I made playlists for cocktails, eating, bouquet/garter toss, and dancing and then asked a friend to monitor the computer and make the necessary announcements during the reception.  In the end, I think he did as well as most deejays (except I liked every single song!) but would love to have had a live band.  If you're making your own playlists, here are screen shots of what worked well for us.  I tried to include songs for all ages and tastes.

Cocktails:

Eating:

Dancing:

For bouquet and garter toss, we played "You are the Best Thing" by Ray LaMontagne (the intro is really fun) and our first dance song was "Lucky" by Jason Mraz/Colbie Caillat.  For our ceremony recessional, we had the chorus of "You & Me" by Dave Matthews

The Photos
Finally, I can't say how glad we are that we had a photo booth at our reception.  I'm now the proud owner of a scrap book full of photos of our guests and pages they decorated for us.  It's way more interesting than a guest book! Everyone had a great time playing around and taking silly pictures.

I have tons more information I could share, but unless you all want to hear about my system of labeled bins and task lists, I'll save it for emails to anyone who's interested.  Feel free to shoot me a note if you want to know about any particular vendors or how I managed to stay organized.   

Wedding Recap: The Clothes

Now that I finally have wedding photos, I can write about my day and share how I saved money and still managed to throw (what I think was) a pretty nice wedding.  Rather than write a novel, I'm going to split this into two posts and first cover the clothes: 

The Bride
My dress was called Brookelyn by Maggie Sottero.  I didn't think I wanted a strapless dress at all, but once I tried it on I felt very bride-ey and called it a day.  Because this style is not from this year's collection, I was able to purchase a sample dress from a store in Dallas that serves as the outlet for a couple of high end stores.  (Check out A Bridal Closet at Willow Bend Mall if you're local) and paid $399 for what used to be a fairly expensive dress.  I learned that most new wedding gowns under $800 (my self-imposed limit, including tax and alterations) felt cheap and were poorly constructed, so I was happy to sacrifice newness for quality.

My shoes were called Prissy from Naturalizer and adorned with (borrowed) shoe clips and the jewelry was a mix of other borrowed and family pieces.  I purchased my jeweled headband from Etsy (the Claire series by Prim and Posies).

The Guys
N and I both agreed that proper tuxedos were not important to us, especially for a daytime wedding.  Rather than ask his friends to spend money on a rental, they took advantage of a buy one get one free suit sale at Mens Wearhouse and all ordered the same black wool blend suit.  As suits go, it was already on the cheap side and each guy ended up paying for half of one and then got to keep it.  We bought them all the same tie as part of their gift and they wore their own black shoes.  If this isn't the exact suit, it's very similar.  The sale is BOGO $100 right now, but keep watching for the free promotion.

The Girls
I found the bridesmaid dresses on the same day I found my gown in a streak of shopping luck.  My cousin and I walked into The Limited and there they were on the sale rack.  I bought every one they had in store and order a couple more online.  The dresses ended up being $55 and each girl was really excited to have something that's actually re-wearable.  I also purchased silver circle necklaces from Kohl's as part of the bridesmaid gifts, which I gave inside of a makeup bag in these monogrammed totes. (I got teal and navy because I liked them best with a white monogram)

Baby gift du jour: Muji's City in a Bag

Since every third person I know is expecting a child or raising a baby, I've paid a lot of attention to baby gift options this year.  I don't like buying things that will quickly get outgrown and tend to shy away from anything emblazoned with movie characters.  Also, I can't spend much on everyone but feel compelled to buy presents for every little person entering the world.  Enter this great $14 gift:

Muji sells these great block sets featuring landmarks in London, Paris, and Tokyo.  I know that babies can't play with the blocks yet and might swallow the tiny trees, but these sets come in little drawstring bags and can be safely displayed up high until Junior is old enough not to eat them. 

And I'm not gonna lie... I want the London set for myself.  ;-)